


eyes shut to life, i just traced it (once we met, i stopped fakin’)

by Yellow_Bird_On_Richland



Category: The Office (US)
Genre: Art-Based Analysis of Pam Beesly, Character Study: Karen Filippelli, Character Study: Pam Beesly, F/F, Pam sees Karen as art, Season 3 AU, there's a universe where "i got goosebumps" sparks something more and this is it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:40:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27130043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yellow_Bird_On_Richland/pseuds/Yellow_Bird_On_Richland
Summary: Despite being a self-proclaimed artist, Pam Beesly's world almost always runs monochrome. Not even the cool kind of monochrome where you can distinguish shades, like, charcoal black versus starry night sky black, either. It’s all just dreary, conveyor belt gray. Wake up, makeup (enough to look presentable, not enough to get hit on), drive to work, salads or sandwiches for lunch, “Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam,” dinners for one (sometimes microwaved), early bedtime. That’s her life on a loop.Until, one day, it’s not.It’s funny, Pam thinks to herself later, the things that transpire to gently tip her little world off its too-comfortable axis and help her rediscover the full spectrum of color, one flash, one swatch, at a time.S3 AU.
Relationships: Karen Filippelli/Jim Halpert, Pam Beesly/Karen Filippelli
Comments: 10
Kudos: 44





	eyes shut to life, i just traced it (once we met, i stopped fakin’)

The thing about working at Dunder Mifflin Scranton that most outsiders don't comprehend right away, from Pam's perspective, is that not every single day is pure, unadulterated chaos. That just wouldn't be sustainable in terms of getting work done. Or _not_ getting work done, really. She sees enough of nothing happening day in, day out, week in, week out, month in, month out (and participates in enough of said non-productivity herself) to guess they're lagging behind the other branches that have, you know, workflow processes and stable leadership.

The real issue is the low-level garbage they have to eat, like pigs being fed slop at the trough, only to shit it out and roll around in it later. There's the idiotic asides from Michael, of course, plus Angela's frostiness, Kevin and Creed's unwanted sexual harassment, Oscar's pretentiousness, Meredith's alcoholism, etc. Totally normal office issues.

" _Not to mention my judginess,"_ Pam admits guiltily, surveying the dingy, poorly-lit environment that Michael so often calls "his kingdom" and "their home." She'd find it pathetic if it wasn't so sad.

When the first two of the Stamford crew arrive and their faces twist in confusion at Michael's antics, then drop into disappointment as they realize, _"Oh, this is just who he is,"_ she wants to offer them a piece of candy or something; it's a small gesture, but it's the only one she has to give. Pam's not sure if anyone is made to thrive here. Except maybe Dwight, but he's perpetually thwarted (and counter-balanced) by Michael.

 _("Oh, God,"_ she shakes her head at the camera during her talking head interview. _"There can't be another Dwight out in the corporate world, right? Another one coming here? If there is, I…"_ she takes a deep breath, nods once, plasters a giant, fake smile on her face. She'll try to be the best version of herself today, and she tells the camera, _"I will be_ _accommodating.")_

She re-centers herself, offering a warm, genuine smile (or something close to it) to the next ex-Stamford employee to come in. She musters up a pinch of extra enthusiasm and says, "Hi!" brightly.

"Hi," the woman answers. Pam sees a flicker of life in her deep brown eyes, in her solid posture, more than in the others she's greeted, and it makes her job a touch easier. She answers warmly, "I'm Pam."

The woman gestures to herself, says, "Karen," then tips her hand out toward Pam. "I love your sweater."

"Oh, thanks," Pam feels her overly-stretched smile retract into a regular one. "My mom made it for me."

" _And I got too comfortable,"_ she laments. _"I sound like such a nerd, I_ _am_ _such a nerd."_ She supposes it's befitting her position, to seem dowdy and frumpy when she's only in her late twenties, but then Karen honest-to-God _beams_ at her and replies, with something that sounds like genuine enthusiasm, "Really? That's so cool. I've always wanted to learn how…"

Her voice trails off and she ends her sentence with a flat, "to knit," as Michael rushes over to ruin their moment. No, their introduction. It was definitely just an introduction.

"Welcome, welcome, welcome!" Michael rumbles before doing his robot impression. Even for him, it's really bad. "Take me to your leader. Oh wait, I am your leader."

Pam watches Karen's eyebrows crinkle as she sizes him up and gamely tries to play along. "Uh, wait, are you a robot or a martian?"

"Actually, I am your boss. Michael Scott." He extends his hand and she takes it.

"Hi. Karen," she nods, with a touch of wooden stiffness in her voice that Pam hadn't detected during their initial greeting.

"Welcome," Michael answers, giving her a once or twice over before commenting appreciatively, "Wow, you are very exotic-looking. Was your dad a G.I., or…?"

"Michael," Pam snaps as she notices Karen's jaw twitch for a second. That urge to do something, _anything_ , for the poor souls who have to get acclimated to Scranton—both the office and the town, too—boils up in her stomach again, and before she knows what she's doing, she's pushing her shitty chair back and actually standing up to say, "I'll just show Karen to her work area before the next Stamford employee arrives."

"Thank you, Pamela," he responds, rapping his knuckles against her desk before adding, "Teamwork. A melting pot. Like delicious fondue. We're _fond of you_ , former Stamford folks!" he calls, chuckling at his own terrible pun.

Pam shakes her head as she leads Karen the five feet or so to her desk, by Phyllis and Stanley. She looks out of place there—too young, too lively—and Pam doesn't want to just abandon her, so she apologizes, "Sorry for Michael. He's…" she sighs because there's too much to say, honestly; you learn to live with him on your own terms.

"I've heard stories," Karen assures her, like she can pick up on all the words Pam's not sharing, then adds, "On the bright side, if I flirt with him, like, once a week or so, I can totally swing extra vacation days and duck outta here early without any kind of a problem."

Pam nods, willing herself not to laugh. "You could do that," she admits, "but then his attention on you will be...more."

She can't quite explain Michael's looks—usually an unpleasant if not slightly heartbreaking mix of horny want and debilitating yearning, both borne out of loneliness—or exactly what she's expressing with her turn of phrase, but again, Karen seems to intuitively grasp just what she means. "Based on your expression, I'd guess that tradeoff isn't worth it?" she ventures, and Pam nods. Feels, surprisingly, the grimace on her face, senses her skin rippling over muscles that have been slack and dull all too often before she answers, with a dry laugh, "No. No, it's not."

She wants to talk to Jim for a second, but then the next new face arrives and then the phone rings, so she can't. She figures they'll catch up later, that they'll eat lunch together, like always. Or like always-before. She's not sure how time works between them now, and it's strange, she'll concede, when she sees him eating with Karen. Stranger, still, when he excuses himself and says he has to get back to work not five minutes after Pam sits down at the break room table with her ham-and-cheese sandwich, banana, water bottle, and black cherry yogurt.

(She dredges up a false smile for at least the eighth time that day. _"It's totally fine. I'm happy for him. Karen seems nice, and funny, and she's certainly attractive. I can see why Jim would be interested in going out with her."_ _)_

They ask Pam for more takes of her shot. She asks why.

" _No,"_ she insists as they play back her footage, _"I'm sure my voice doesn't sound too clipped. Why would it?")_

**

Inspiration is a master hide and seek player. Or, rather, the ultimate hider. Pam blows as a seeker. She knows from Dwight's childlike sharing of Harry Potter facts that a "seeker" is a Quidditch player, too. Her team would always lose if she had to man that position. Or woman it. Whatever, she doesn't really care about the gender logistics.

She wonders, as she surveys a blank page in her drawing notebook, if she's ever truly found inspiration at all before. In middle school, high school, and college, she'd almost always received the same feedback on her work: technically sound, but emotionless. That kind of art can be striking in its starkness, its stillness, Pam knows, but hers never feels that impactful, and as she flips through her past pieces, she gets the sense that she's only produced facsimiles of life. Not even good facsimiles, either—they're barely alive, on ventilators, hovering on the edge of death.

She's trying to sketch an outdoor cafe, working on a red awning, when she decides to Google pictures on her laptop as guides. Her art feels rudimentary, crude, lifeless, and a couple of teardrops fall from her eyes and splash onto the page. Hypothetically spoiling her work. If there was anything to spoil.

"Pathetic," Pam almost snarls, surprised by the vitriol in her voice. She's always been quiet, even now, when she lives alone in a little second story walk-up. It's not great, but it's hers, feels like the first true space of her own. She'd hoped not living with Roy any more might spark something artistic in her bones, but they mostly register a hollow chill—she can't bring herself to put the heat on yet, not on her meager salary alone.

She rips out the page, almost automatically, since she's done this song and dance before. She'll have a good cry, put her tools away, and watch some mindless television or maybe read a book, wondering how so many other people have produced viable art while she hasn't.

She's ready to do that when she impulsively slashes at the next page with her red colored pencil, trying to capture her frustration with a giant red "x."

She feels her pulse quicken at it, so she keeps going. Draws nine messy diagonal lines, one for each year she'd wasted with Roy, and then she presses harder on the page, starts almost carving it up with her pencil, to express her unspoken dissatisfaction, no, her fucking _rage_ at the number of times he'd used her body for his orgasm without even bothering to go through the motions of trying to get her off. Suddenly, she's not thinking of art, just making it, inspired by her own life, by its injustices, making more furious scribbles for every time she's been hit on at work, for every time she refused to speak up for herself.

The page is full-up with slashes of lines, indecipherable scrawls of curse words, all red and orange. It's not a teen's emo angst, but a grown-up's exasperation at the world.

Something whispers in her ear, _"You're not done yet."_

She thrills at that sensation since she sometimes struggles to fill out even a standard, 8.5 x 11 page with her art. She retrieves a larger, oversized sketch pad, one that normally seems too ambitious for her small, domestic pieces—almost always perfectly centered, unobtrusively neat—but today, the tearing out of a page suggests possibility, not pain.

She retrieves her charcoal, her acrylic paint, and lays out newspapers across the floor. The freshness of the bright, near profane red colors reminds Pam of how often she neglects them for safe, tranquil, neutral tones, buttery yellows and aqua blues and office floor browns.

She starts with the paint, applying it in thick, bold, glossy strokes for a background until that voice—is it ingenuity, or has she been inhaling asbestos fibers or suffering from radon poisoning at the office?—whispers again: _"You're an animal. Act like it."_

She's not quite as reckless as the thing she's calling inspiration is, so she retrieves a roll of paper towels and some of her rags from her tiny closet since she'd rather not make too much of a mess. But as she goes to change out of her sweatpants and into some of her grungy art jeans, she figures, _"Why bother? No one's going to see me. And if I get paint on my underwear, who's going to see that, either?"_

A giggle gurgles out of her as she slips out of her pants, apropos of nothing, at not having to balance wanting Roy's (and Jim's) consumptive gazes and despising them. She feels a heady rush that builds as she dashes back to the living room, sits herself down by her work, and trails her pointer finger across the paper, gasping at the unexpected cold that hits her fingertip. She digs her nails into the paint, creating white streaks in the red, a pair of matching ones, then squeezes some paint into the palm of her right hand, smearing it all over the paper. A big, ugly mess. The kind she never makes. Not in her life, not in her art. Until now.

She works in some charcoal with her left hand, deliberate in how she oversaturates the page with color—it's thick, heavy, feels like she's working with blood more than any artistic medium and she loves it, starts blurring in the charcoal with her fingers, with the knuckles of her hands.

She whispers to herself, as she surveys what she's brought to life and considers the birthing stains on her hands, "I'm an animal. I'm a fucking animal."

It sounds so ridiculous that another giggle, then a peal of laughter, bubbles out of her and she can't quite stop it, because she can't remember the last time she made herself laugh like this. Made herself feel glad to be alive.

Pam normally agonizes over whether or not her works are done, making endless tweaks, erasing and re-drawing and frowning all the while, but today she knows. "This is complete," she nods, speaking her confidence into existence, then scrawls her name messily in the top right corner. It's not quite legible, but that's kind of the point, to blend it in with the art. She knows it's there; that's all that matters.

Sleep comes as a relief. Not because she longs to escape her head, as is usually the case, but because she's actually tired from expending energy and mental focus on a project. She dreams in screaming red, the colors of fire trucks and midlife crisis convertibles and plunging evening gowns and Baywatch bikinis all gliding through her subconscious in a beautiful kaleidoscope.

She studies the painting just before she leaves for work the next morning and grins.

**

( _"I decided that, with all these new people around, why shouldn't I get a chance to reinvent myself, too? I want to be more honest, more authentic. So, um…meet new Pam,"_ she tells the camera, with some of her usual shyness still coming through. She's trying to project her confidence outward, and that's a work in progress, but just feeling it swell inside her and acknowledging it is a good start.)

She starts small, when Karen notices her and Roy chatting in the break room and comments, after he leaves, "Seems like he's kinda into you. Would you go out with him?"

She starts to say, "Maybe," but then swallows the lie, forces it down, and instead replies, "No, I'm not interested in him. Long story short, we used to be engaged. Um. It didn't work. Both of us had our faults, our issues."

"Oh, so _that_ was Roy," Karen answers, the note of irritation in her voice saying Jim's shared some details about the whole disastrous love triangle that maybe still exists in certain pockets, certain fringes, of the office.

"Yeah," Pam nods, and Karen retorts, "I can get why he was mad."

Pam presses forward, through the sting of the insult—she knows she'd strung him along—unsure of why exactly she's explaining herself to this saleswoman who seems likely to transcend Dunder Mifflin Scranton sooner rather than later, but she laments, _"I said I'd be more authentic on camera, didn't I?"_

So she tells Karen, "I know Jim and I had a really weird history, but," she tastes something like death as she swallows, "it's done from my end. I know you two are...seeing each other," and God, she sounds like her mom, phrasing it that way, but at least Karen hasn't stormed out yet, so she can choke this out, "and I'm over him. He's still gonna be my friend, but, like. That's it."

The same sense of finality that had settled into her bones last night when she'd completed her painting revisits her now, a lightening of tension and pressure, and her shoulders sink down from their sentry position by her ears.

"Okay," Karen nods. "Um, thanks, I guess, for letting me know."

Pam busies herself behind her desk for the rest of the day, willing herself not to meet Jim's questioning gaze.

Baby steps in being bold are still steps, she tells herself, and she takes another later that week, snapping a picture of her artwork on her phone so she can share it.

Jim and Karen come up to her desk together—it seems to be an agreed-upon couple thing, semi-enforced by Karen—at some point on Friday to grouse about Dwight insisting that all employees log how long they're spending in the bathroom and Pam surprises herself when she says, "I painted something earlier this week," and pulls out her phone, hands it to them. "The picture quality isn't great, but you can take a look if you want."

"It's cool," Jim comments, and old Pam would've been over the moon to hear that, probably would've even texted her mom, "Jim thinks my painting is cool!"

New Pam registers a dull thud of disappointment. _"A one-word reaction? Seriously, Halpert?"_ she scoffs in her head.

"Seriously, Halpert?" Karen echoes Pam's unspoken sentiments, making her do a double-take. "This is the opposite of cool," she comments, and Pam's prepared to never take another risk again in her life when Karen continues, "All the reds and oranges signify heat, passion, anger. Maybe some exasperation." She clams up after a second, then murmurs to Pam, "I had to take a couple art classes in college, and they kinda stuck with me. Sorry if I'm totally off-base with those assumptions."

"No, you're dead-on," Pam replies, impressed, "I was feeling all this frustration at a bunch of stuff with my life and I even painted with my hands, which I never do, and…"

At some point, she thinks Jim gives one of his looks to the camera and then walks away. She used to be able to sense every one of his reactions, and she can't tell if she's lost that ability or if she's just letting it go, but Karen's still at her desk, so she keeps chatting with her.

"I gotta get back to work," Karen says after a couple more turns in their conversation, a touch wistfully. "But, um, yeah. That piece is super genuine. Did you give it a title?"

"Yeah, it's called 'I Didn't Mind My Manners This Time,'" Pam answers, in more of a breath than a real voice; no one's ever asked her that about her art before.

Karen nods thoughtfully. "I dig that. And there's a lot more to it than just being cool." Her slightly dismissive tone and air quotes and eye roll all scream, _"Boys are dumb sometimes,"_ and Pam grins back, like, _"Yeah. Tell me about it."_

It's nice to have this manner of silent speaking with someone besides Jim. With a woman.

( _"It's just, I haven't really ever had a girlfriend at work,"_ she explains to the camera. _"I mean, a friend who's a girl in the office,"_ she corrects herself quickly. _"And I'd say Karen and I are still closer to acquaintances than friends, but still."_ She recycles her own line from just before, what she'd thought before she got pulled in for her latest segment. _"It's nice.")_

**

Michael's going to be forlorn for the Christmas party. Turns out that proposing to your girlfriend after two months of being together (at a Diwali party, to boot), photoshopping yourself into an old family Christmas card, and inviting her on a surprise, all-inclusive vacation at Sandals, Jamaica, are not particularly stellar dating tactics.

Pam wonders if she'll have to resort to asking Meredith to sneak in some of her car booze when Andy, of all people, saves the day, insisting, "I can't concentrate when I know you're in pain, Michael. Lemme take you to lunch."

He mumbles, "Alright, nothing here to distract myself with anyway. But I need my entourage. Jim, Dwight, Ryan, c'mon, we're going to Asian Hooters."

Ryan rattles off nonsensical excuses and Jim can't match any of his, so he gets drafted to soothe Michael's soul over sweet and sour chicken. Pam grimaces and half-shrugs at him as he leaves, like, _"Sorry, dude,"_ but she's also very, very grateful to get a reprieve from a day of angsty Michael.

She focuses on her work since she'd rather not have much of a backlog upon returning from the holidays, and she's powered through some invoices and ensured all of their new clients are aware they'll be out of the office for the next week or so when she feels someone's eyes on her.

She automatically thinks it's Jim, except he's gone, so it's Karen.

"Hey," she murmurs as she comes up to Pam's desk. "Could I talk to you for a sec?"

( _"No, I didn't know Jim and Karen were facing...challenges...in their relationship._ " She decides on the word after a minute, thinks it's the most neutral noun that still preserves some degree of honesty. _"Jim hasn't really told me much about it and neither had Karen, before today. I hope they can both find happiness."_

They ask her to clarify her last line.

" _I'm not saying I want them to split up, not at all,"_ she answers, a touch defensively. _"But staying in a relationship just for the sake of staying it doesn't work. Roy and I are proof of that,"_ she admits. She's had fewer reservations about owning up to that truth lately. _"So, again, I hope Jim and Karen can both find happiness. They're my friends, of course I want them to be happy."_ )

Even with Michael gone, the day gets weirder, as Angela flexes her non-existent muscles and boots Karen from the party planning committee.

"Sorry that meeting was all crazy," Pam apologizes.

"Yeah, right? I'm so glad you said that," she answers gratefully. "Because I don't know how those meetings usually go, but…"

"They're mostly like that," Pam acknowledges.

"Does anyone ever stand up to Angela?" Karen asks, a hint of a challenge in her voice.

"I think one of her cats did once. She came in with scratches all over her face," Pam whispers, and she should be a better person than this, but she sort of loves it when Karen giggles in response.

She figures that'll be the end of it, but then Karen tells her, "Your raffle idea sounded really good."

"Thanks—so does your margarita bar."

Karen glances back into the conference room, then beckons Pam closer. She crouches down and she's not trying to smell Karen's shampoo, but she catches a waft of something that could be called Ocean Breeze, she guesses.

"You think we'd be able to organize a second party?" she asks conspiratorially, brown eyes alight with mischief, and she's reminded of hiding an umbrella on the floor to tug at a coat rack to make Dwight think Jim had telekinetic powers.

Maybe it has something to do with cataloguing the colors in Karen's outfit—her gold necklace, her blue and white striped blouse, her sensible black trousers, her hazel eyes that flash green like the light on Daisy's dock once in a blue moon—as she weighs the pros and cons of answering yes or no. While she finishes doing that (she's leaning toward yes), Pam's suddenly struck by the array of hues she's taken for granted around the office: the cool, almost liquid silver of the massive filing cabinets, the forest greens and navy blues that pop against the crisp whites of bankers boxes, the jet-black outlining around every window pane, even the steady-eddy gray carpeting.

"Pam?"

She snaps out of her reverie. "Sorry. I—um—I was just thinking if I had to finish any other big tasks for the day, before we're off for a bit. And I don't think I do, so," she smiles brightly at the woman who maybe just helped clear her vision and got her to see the world like an artist, if only for a second. "Let's go for it."

Karen grins at her, offers her a fist bump. "Welcome aboard the committee to plan parties, Beesly. Think you could whip up a flyer announcing our little shindig?"

"On it," she nods decisively, then suggests, "We could use pink paper. Make it pop."

"Sure, whatever you want. You're the artist," Karen responds, in a tone that's not so much gladly abdicating responsibility as it is carefully placing trust, and Pam tries not to think about just how much she likes hearing those last three words drop out of Karen's lipsticked mouth.

( _"Are we taking this too far?"_ Karen frowns after asking the rhetorical question, then issues a declaration of war. " _Y_ _ou know what, I don't think we're taking this far enough."_

Pam swallows her gasp, feels her eyes widen at Karen's boldness, and her neck snaps to stare at her with almost alarming speed. _"What?"_ Karen turns to return her gaze.

" _I got goosebumps,"_ Pam admits, shyly, feeling like a teenager tottering around the mall with her crush, and Karen offers a half-shrug and a sort of impressed look to the camera.)

She doesn't mean to glom on to Karen throughout the party.

It just sort of happens. They stay paired up as the party's hosts and logistics masterminds, and between the margs, the fact that everyone else besides Angela is having a blast, _and_ the fact that Michael's no longer moping, she feels really good.

Good enough to tell Karen over the karaoke, "Sorry I was a bitch to you before. When I first found out you and Jim were dating."

She's rarely so brutally honest with anyone, even herself, but she's been working on saying what she feels, and she thinks Karen will appreciate the profanity to go with the honesty.

She does, answers, "I appreciate you saying that. Sorry I was a bitch to you, too, when you were only being friendly with Jim. Here," she plucks a bottle of Jose Cuervo from Meredith's grasp and pours two shots, passes one to Pam. "Tequila under the bridge."

"You're fuckin funny, Filippelli," Pam laughs before they clink the glasses together and toss back their drinks.

"Oh, shit, we didn't cheers to anything," Karen realizes.

"Well," Pam's grin is a little loopy, and this isn't her best idea ever, but she doesn't care, "we'll just have to take another shot together, then." She pours them mini servings this time. "What're we toasting?"

"Hmm...how about friendship? Or art?" Karen suggests.

Pam points insistently, triumphantly, at her. "The art of friendship!"

Karen's face lights up like a Christmas tree and she crows, with a giddiness that's nearly intimate, " _Yes._ You're fuckin brilliant, Beesly," before they tell each other, "To the art of friendship!" and down their quarter shots.

Pam's tempted to say more, but the tequila seems to glue her tongue to the roof of her mouth.

She wants to say, "I like that you call me by my last name when no one else does."

She wants to say, "I feel the most like new Pam when I'm with you."

She's not quite that brave yet, so she lets the words slide on by like the hours til it's a bit past 7 and they're all ready to go home.

"Merry Christmas, Beesly," Karen calls to her from the parking lot. "And thanks for party planning with me."

"Back at ya, Filippelli. Merry Christmas!" Pam answers, a touch louder than she normally would.

She contemplates asking Karen if she wants to go out for a drink, except she'd undoubtedly rather go home with Jim, and, in hindsight, Pam would rather hang onto the magic she's gained today rather than be greedy and risk losing it altogether. She wants to preserve their little moments in amber, save them in a mason jar.

Or in paint.

It'd feel pretentious to do this sober, but the alcohol lends a little bit of grandeur to her proceedings, and she likes the symbolism of doubly conserving the evening's memories.

Drawing miniature versions of everything—the tree, the karaoke machine and Darryl's piano, the margarita mixer—is a bit of a pain, but she sobers up and drinks some water while she's at it, then draws the snowglobe around all the other pieces, dots flurries of precipitation and adds a sheen in some spots to give the perception of light reflecting off glass.

She texts it to Karen—that's not weird, not when they've texted each other a couple times already about work things, right?—and adds, "To commemorate one of the best Christmas parties our branch has ever had. P.s. thanks for standing up to Angela. I've been wanting to do that for years."

She's not expecting anything back, but later on in the night, Karen replies, "This is amazing! So much detail in the mini figurines in the snow globe. You're so talented. I'd love to see your work in person sometime if you'd wanna bring it in or something. And you're so welcome, it was truly a pleasure lol."

Pam reads the text back three times, convinced she must be drunker than she'd thought, but those three words are definitely real: "You're so talented."

She can't recall the last time anyone besides her parents told her that, can't even remember the last time _they_ did, even, and normally that would make her sad, but new Pam revels in the present, in Karen's praise, and works up the courage to text back, "Would you wanna come over for a cup of coffee sometime, or something?"

She doesn't get a response to that and figures she's overstepped a boundary, but one comes through the next morning: "Sure, that'd be fun!"

**

Pam doesn't know how this works. How much or how little one prepares for a coffee not-date with a friend on a random Saturday afternoon. She preps a cheese plate with some fruit and a baguette, frets for a second, _"What if Karen is lactose intolerant? Or doesn't want carbs because she's watching her figure?"_ but then remembers she's seen Karen eat pizza at one or two of Michael's weird parties, so her selections are probably fine.

Pam's also not sure of just what to wear for, like, hanging out with a friend, solo. She hasn't really spent time with anyone besides Roy in this kind of environment in years. The only times she'd done that with Jim had been after work, which only half-counts, in her mind.

She throws on a pair of dark blue jeans rather than one of her more faded, lighter pairs so she isn't dressed too much like a 90s sitcom mom, but puts on another homemade sweater on top, this one maroon.

Karen arrives decked out in black jeans and a dark green top with a scoop neckline that really, really compliments her skin tone, and it's ok for Pam to notice things like that when she's noticing more and more color everywhere these days, right?

She's never been that good at casual intimacy with women, but being with Karen outside of work is surprisingly easy, as Karen compliments her sweater once she comes in and Pam comments, "That's a little deja vu from when we first met, isn't it?"

"Oh my God, yeah, it is!" Karen nods. "I remember, I was telling you I've always wanted to learn how to knit and then Michael…" she trails off, unsure of how to adequately finish her sentence when Pam completes it by adding, "Was Michael," and they both laugh at just how perfectly that concise explanation captures all that needs to be said about their boss.

Pam's still not sure exactly what to do—she's realizing a rather sad amount of her social life involves discussing her coworkers—so she busies herself making coffee and confirms with Karen, "You take your coffee with one sugar usually, right?"

"Yeah, I do." Karen nods, smiling slightly. "You remembered that?"

Pam shrugs, trying to make it seem like no big deal, like she's not at all pleased that Karen noticed. "It's kinda my job as designated coffee retriever."

"Still, thanks," Karen answers as Pam hands her a hot mug, then starts slicing into the baguette and puts little rounds on the cheeseboard. "I wasn't sure if you'd be hungry, but I had some stuff...around," Pam lies, wanting to downplay her effort. "So I figured I could fix us some snacks. I've also got more fruit if you don't want all the carbs from the bread."

"As if. I'm Italian, carbs are in my blood, Beesly," she laughs as she cuts herself a generous slice of brie, smears it over a bit of bread, and pops it in her mouth. Pam tracks the colors involved—the silver glint of the butter knife, the brown crust, the pink sheen of Karen's lipstick, the creamy white of the cheese—and lowers her gaze back toward her coffee mug when Karen gives her a look and asks, "Do I have brie smeared on my face or something?"

"No, you're...you're good, you're fine, Karen," she murmurs, drinking more deeply from her mug to hide her face because realizing, with startling, crystal-sharp clarity, that Karen Filippelli is pretty damn beautiful is more than enough to make her blush a blooming, all-encompassing red.

They talk about everything and nothing: books (they're both sometimes partial to "chick lit," a term Pam kind of hates because no one calls action films "guy movies") and tv shows (Pam's somehow stayed committed to Lost despite its egregious plot holes, and she learns Karen's deep into Dexter) and sports (Karen's got some family near Pittsburgh, and while she's not a huge sports fan herself, she likes to needle Jim once in a while about his beloved Eagles).

A door cracks open at that, and Pam waffles about wedging her foot into it, decides it would be better to not mention anything—she's always hated being that person to bring up a relationship that may not be going so well, and she'd had enough awkward conversations with people asking about her and Roy's wedding after they'd broken it off. And, luckily, Karen distracts her, anyway, saying, "So, where's this amazing art I've seen in the oh so high-quality images of your flip phone?"

Pam's about to ask, "You sure you want to see it?" but then bites back her insecurity (along with a bite of bread and a strawberry for good measure) and whispers to herself, _"Karen literally asked you about what you've been making. She said yes to coming over for coffee. Trust her words."_

So she announces, "Lemme retrieve them," and does just that.

"I'm not sure how exactly to best show them off," Pam admits as she comes back with the two pieces she's finished recently, since she—as she's come to think of it—re-discovered color. It sounds lame as hell, but really, her life had been blotted out in monotone, conveyer belt gray for a while. "The Christmas themed one is regular sketch pad size, but this one is bigger." She ruffles the larger, more aggressive "I Didn't Mind My Manners This Time" piece.

"We could lay it out on your coffee table?" Karen suggests, and Pam moves Jodi Picoult's The Tenth Circle off of it to make room for her art.

"This is seriously good. It seems almost alive, in a way. Your emotions really came through with how heavy a lot of the paint and charcoal is set into the paper," Karen murmurs as she studies it with a careful eye, and Pam, again, feels her face flush. Because this is the first time in years that someone's paying actual, painstaking attention to her art, and not just because they're related to her, or because they're being paid to do it as their job.

"Thanks," Pam answers quietly; the thin walls of her apartment don't block out much noise, and the radiator usually comes alive with a sickly, rattling hiss, but today, everything feels strangely muted, like the world's shut itself off for her and Karen to chat. "I'm usually more careful and more cautious," she explains further, and Karen's purposeful eye contact gets more words to tumble from her mouth. "I was actually trying to draw a cafe originally, with a red awning, but it looked pretty bad, and I was fed up, so I slashed a big red X on this page out of frustration. It kind of boiled over from there and I just kept going."

Pam can hear herself speaking, can feel her lips moving, but the way Karen's tilted her head while listening sparks up a couple of those rare, precious flashes of green in her eyes and the color runs free in Pam's imagination. She contemplates sketching someone in a halter top dress in that hue.

"So what'd you think of from there, from that unexpected starting point?" Karen asks.

Old Pam would definitely censor herself, would maybe blush.

New Pam answers, "I thought of Roy. And all the time I wasted on him. And how bad the sex usually was for me."

She absolutely delights in Karen's near-cackle, in how her jaw drops, in the solid feeling of their hands slapping together when Karen high-fives her, in the increased volume in her voice as she crows, "Pam Beesly, keeping it real as _fuck_!"

"I mean, I wish it had been good, but it's true," she answers. She manages to keep a straight face, at least until Karen shakes her head and snorts, "Men are the worst. I swear, they all need Mapquest directions to find the clit."

At that, Pam bursts out laughing, and she almost has to catch Karen's arm for support to steady herself.

"What?" Karen grins, laughing herself. "Tell me I'm wrong."

Pam shakes her head, still laughing a little uncontrollably. "You're not."

"The double standards are just ridiculous," Karen sighs. "It's so much nicer how—"

She suddenly clams up, and Pam senses she might be on the edge of another door opening. She doesn't shove it open, just knocks. "It's so much nicer how what, Karen?"

When Karen blushes, it's not a patchy, blotchy, tell-tale red like on Pam's pale cheeks. No, Karen's cheeks glow pink, and it's not fair that she gets even prettier when she's flustered. She sighs. "What I'm gonna tell you—it can't go anywhere, okay? No telling Jim, even."

"Okay," Pam promises, and she'll keep that promise. Unless Karen, like, confesses that she broke a guy's nose or something for being bad at oral sex.

Karen sighs again, nods almost to herself, and murmurs quietly, "I was gonna say—it's so much nicer how women really care about making you feel good."

Pam feels kinda stupid, because it takes her a second to catch up, to get it, but then she does. Her eyes go wide even though she doesn't mean to look at Karen like an alien, like an "other," but she'd hardly been expecting to hear _that._ And then she stammers, "That's...uh. That's nice. That they can. That they do. For you."

Karen's mouth quirks up in a smile that doesn't quite stretch to her eyes, so Pam blunders on, "And thanks for, um, trusting me with that...part of you. I promise, it won't change anything. And I won't tell a soul."

Karen's smile turns complete at that addition. "Thanks, Pam." She turns the page like it's nothing, asks, "So you did the Christmas drawing the night of the party, right?"

Pam nods dumbly for a second, then clears her throat and responds, "Um, yeah, I just wanted to get it down before I forgot some of the details," and she knows, in some section of her brain, that they discuss her drawing, but most of her mental energy is jump-roping between two thoughts, namely, _"Karen likes women in addition to guys,"_ and _"I think I like Karen. The way Jim and I used to like each other."_

At that realization, the colors of her admittedly dreary apartment—dusty blue drapes, an inoffensive gray carpet, mint-green kitchen walls that remind her of drunkenly ordering McDonald's Shamrock Shakes with Roy on St. Patrick's Day—bloom and crystallize like they're begging Pam to collect them.

Fuck.

Shit.

Motherfucking shit.

**

Pam snatches up her fallen comrade's AK-47, hopefully sprays a handful of rounds into a crowd of enemy soldiers, and, about a minute later, has her throat slit by some sneaky asshole with a knife.

"You're still pretty hopeless at Call of Duty," Karen observes, "but you're getting better. At least you didn't grab a sniper rifle this time," she teases.

"Shut up, Filippelli," Pam responds with equal sass as she respawns.

This is, undoubtedly, the weirdest Valentine's Day Pam's ever had.

Or Galentine's Day, as they'd started calling it.

( _"It's sort of lame,"_ she'd told the camera crew earlier, while they were still at work, _"but left to my own devices, I might be having a pity party, since this is my first Valentine's Day as a single woman in a really long time, so."_ She shrugs and smiles. _"Spending part of the day with a friend is better, isn't it?"_ )

Her act might even be construed as generosity, considering Karen and Jim broke up shortly after the new year started. Karen had insisted that her go-to method for getting over a guy was to get a little drunk, not quite sad drunk, and Pam had feared bitterness might rise to the surface, but Karen had simply sighed after downing her second Jack and Coke and murmured, "I should probably be more pissed about this whole thing, but I'm somehow...not?"

Turned out Jim hadn't ever gotten over his crush on Pam. Karen thought she was getting a long-term boyfriend when they'd started dating. Jim had worked out (thanks in part to Michael's disastrous three-hour relationship with one of the Benihana waitresses) that he'd scored a rebound.

And now, the two women who, at one point, served as each other's competition are playing video games together, banding against testosterone and Mountain Dew-fueled tweens.

" _Go figure,"_ Pam thinks as she relinquishes control of the desktop back to Karen in favor of grabbing another slice of pizza and a glass of wine. She sits next to her to watch, though. Well, she's supposed to "study" how Karen plays to improve, but she gets mesmerized by how quickly her long fingers fly across the keyboard, moving her soldier, scanning through weapons loadouts. The dark red nail polish is a stark contrast against the neat white keys.

" _Stop doing that,"_ Pam warns herself.

It's not like she can exactly help it, though. She's started picking up on more and more colors everywhere, and she's spending more and more time with Karen. Ergo, she notices a lot of what she's started calling "Karen colors."

She appreciates the difference between her work wardrobe and her relaxing or going out clothes, how the understated whites and grays and blacks get traded out for emerald greens and midnight blues and a steady variety of reds and magentas. She even upscales black to give it a hint of sophistication and elegance when they visit slightly fancier bars (it's still Scranton, so it's not like they can hit up the Ritz or anything).

They trade places for a couple more rounds of mindful violence and end up watching Clueless on Karen's couch.

Pam recognizes a kind of comfort she hasn't felt in years—since maybe the early days with Roy, when he still actively gave a shit about her—so she scooches the tiniest bit closer to Karen and murmurs, "Hey. Thanks for inviting me over for this. It's a lot more fun than whatever I would've gotten up to on my own today."

"No problem," Karen answers. "Honestly, I sort of invited you out of self-preservation, first. I'm pretty much over Jim, but…" she shrugs a little sadly. "The holiday."

"Yeah," Pam nods. She thinks she might know how to cheer Karen up, even if it's at her own expense, but it's whatever. Looking back on it now, it's a little funny. So she tells her, "Last year, Phyllis got, like, three giant bouquets of flowers, three boxes of chocolate, and a massive stuffed teddy bear from Bob Vance."

"Vance refrigeration," Karen replies automatically, and Pam giggles at just how quickly she's become a little bit of a Scranton girl before Karen adds, "And everything went through you at reception?"

"Yep," Pam nods. "The first couple times it was cute, and then it was like, okay, I get it, your boyfriend or fiance or whatever they were at that point loves you and offers outward displays of affection." She rolls her eyes at the memory, even now.

Karen frowns. "And I'm assuming Roy got you…"

"Nothing," Pam completes her query.

Karen's frown deepens. "I'm sorry. Men suck, don't they."

Old Pam would disagree to be charitable. New Pam likes the way Karen thinks. "Yeah. I know you don't necessarily want to think about it, but I'm sorry Jim…" her voice peters off since she's not sure what can be said that they haven't already discussed.

Karen waves away her concern. "It's okay, really. I'm mostly fine."

There's still a pretty sizeable chunk of sadness in her voice, though, and Pam wants to dislodge it, so she responds, with more aggressiveness than she'd intended, "You deserve to be treated better than that, though. You deserve someone who doesn't consider you a fallback option."

Karen's looking at her with something like wonder and Pam's not sure if her heart's racing from excitement or fear or a touch of a Merlot buzz when Karen answers softly, "Thanks, Pam. I think I'd kind of forgotten that. And you deserve the same. Roy really was an idiot, not appreciating what he had in you."

"Thanks, Karen," Pam answers shyly. "I think—I think I'd forgotten that, too."

"Well, I'm happy to remind you," Karen answers. "What are galentines for, anyway?"

The space between them on the couch keeps shrinking as Pam whispers back, "Yeah. What are they for."

And then all she sees is hazel eyes and wine-stained lips and a hint of a pearly white smile and wow, those lips are soft and supple and Karen Filippelli's become the first woman that Pam Beesly's ever kissed.

Pam's perpetually anxious brain is screaming, _"How do you know if you're any good at kissing women? How can you tell?"_ but then Karen murmurs against her lips, with a Cheshire cat grin, "Happy Valentine's Day, Beesly. I hadn't exactly planned on getting you a present, but this seems pretty good, yeah?"

"Yes. Yeah," Pam breathes out, nodding like a fool before she suavely adds, "Happy Valentine's Day, Filippelli."

Karen's grin turns sharp as a knife blade as she whispers, "I like the sound of that, coming from my absolute favorite coworker." She pulls Pam close with a practiced ease that somehow says _"I've done this before"_ and _"I only want you"_ at the same time, and Pam sinks into her too quickly to even track all the vibrant neon fireworks exploding behind her closed eyes.

**

They tell lies of omission at the office, for obvious reasons, but the truth sometimes sneaks out.

Like when Jim pops by Pam's desk to escape Dwight's overzealous paper shredding for a second and comments, "You seem like you're in a really good mood lately."

"Thanks," she answers, "I am." She looks past Jim for a second, to Karen, diligently working on a sales call. "I've been, um, finding a lot of inspiration for art, lately." Karen glances up at her for a beat, grins, and then gets back to the customer.

Pam realizes, now, why this relationship has (through its first couple of months, at least) permanently unlocked her new self.

She'd been Roy's-Pam for ages. She'd wanted to just be Jim's-Pam for a bit, then, too. Now she _can_ be Karen's-Pam, but she doesn't _need_ to be. She's done defining herself in relation to others. Being just Pam is pretty great these days, for the most part.

And her renewed love and passion for art? It's not _just_ from Karen, either. Pam spots possibilities everywhere now, from comparing the grungy, mud-infested snow to the bottom of a coffee-stained mug to contemplating the defiant mustard stains on Kevin's favorite red tie.

She'll happily admit, though, that "Karen colors" are her favorite source of stimulation for developing pieces.

Like the small aquamarine bracelet she bought for Karen at the Steamtown Mall, or the dangly silver earrings Karen picked out especially for her. Or Karen's lacy lilac purple teddy, the one that sets off the coffee tone of her skin and the strawberry pink of her sex. Her latest piece, "Breakfast in Bed," with a collection of lilacs in a vase, set next to cut up, sugared strawberries and a cup of coffee on a bedside table, wasn't particularly subtle, but seeing Karen's wicked grin when she revealed it to her and getting rewarded for the tribute was totally worth relinquishing a bit of her artistic integrity.

It's funny, Pam thinks to herself later in the day, as she's researching Utica's options for art school, since Karen's pretty sure she can wrangle a promotion to regional manager there, the things that have gently tipped her little world off its too-comfortable axis and helped her rediscover the full spectrum of color, one flash, one swatch, at a time.

( _"I wasn't quite asleep,"_ Pam comments thoughtfully to the camera as the guys ask her how she's changed over the past two months or so. _"More just...just drifting. Not like the content kind of drifting, though, like when you're relaxing on a raft in a pool. Just drifting aimlessly, because I didn't know what I wanted."_ She tries and fails to avoid glancing out the window to Karen. _"But now I do, and I'm wide awake. And there's so much I didn't see before, so much I missed. And speaking as an artist…"_ she can't help it. She sneaks another peek at the woman who's fast becoming her muse and beams. " _There's so much beauty and so many colors to capture out in the world, you know? Especially in places you might not think to look.")_


End file.
